~ The Power of Numeracy

"This is commonly referred to as ‘research’" – Gergis

Just what is the ‘research’ that Gergis et.al. claims to have done? And what are the sceptics complaining about?

The ‘research’ claimed by the Gergis et.al. team is captured in the following graphical representation of the past temperature of the Australiasn region.

The hockey stick shape has also been produced using similar methods and random data, as shown in my AIG news article in 2006, and also in chapter 11 of my 2007 book “Niche Modeling“.

It is obvious that if the same result is achieved with random data and with real-world data, the real-world data are probably random. That is, whatever patterns seen are not proven to be significant patterns, by the yardsticks of rigorous statistical methods.

These problems have been widely discussed at ClimateAudit since 2006, and my publications probably grew out of those discussions. Moreover, the circular argument has become commonly known as the “Screening Fallacy” and widely discussed in relation to this area of research ever since.

To claim results when they could equally be achieved by random numbers would get you laughed off the podium in most areas of science. Gergis et.al. informed Steve McIntyre superciliously, however, that this is commonly referred to as ‘research’.

One of the co-authors, Ailie Gallant, stars in the cringe-worthy We Are Climate Scientists, a pretentious rap-video proclaiming they are “fucking climate scientists” and “their work is peer reviewed” in dollar-store sunglasses and lab coats. They have no reason to act superior, and this recent effort proves the point.

Of course, Gergis et.al. claimed to have detrended the data before performing the correlations, and whether this ad-hocery would mitigate the circularity above is questionable. Whether by oversight or intent, it appears the detrending was not performed anyway. I don’t know whether this is the reason for the paper being pulled. We shall find out in time. The paper appears to be the result of a three-year research program, announced on Gergis’ personal blog.

The project, funded by the Australian Research Council’s Linkage scheme, is worth a total of $950K and will run from mid-2009 to mid-2012.

It gives me a job for three years and money to bring a PhD student, research assistant and part time project manager on board.

More importantly, it will go a long way in strengthening the much needed ties between the sciences and humanities scrambling to understand climate change.

Who is contributing the most to research, unpaid bloggers, or a one million, three years, tied with humanities fiasco?